WASHINGTON – David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead at his home Wednesday morning in what police said was an apparent suicide.

Mary Ann Jennings, director of public information for the Fairfax County, Va., Police Department, said Kellermann was found dead in his Reston, Va., home. The 41-year-old Kellermann has been Freddie Mac's chief financial officer since September.

Jennings said that a crime scene crew and homicide detectives were investigating the death, but that there didn't appear to be any sign of foul play.

McLean-based Freddie Mac has been criticized heavily for reckless business practices that some argue contributed to the housing and financial crisis. Freddic Mac is a government-controlled company that owns or guarantees about 13 million home loans. CEO David Moffett resigned last month.

This week marks the end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That’s over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful.

Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.

There are meetings being held Monday and Tuesday in Yekaterinburg, Russia, (formerly Sverdlovsk) among Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The United States, which asked to attend, was denied admittance. Watch what happens there carefully. The gathering is, in the words of economist Michael Hudson, “the most important meeting of the 21st century so far.”

It is the first formal step by our major trading partners to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If they succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that will make the last few months look like boom times. State and federal services will be reduced or shut down for lack of funds. The United States will begin to resemble the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. Obama, endowed by many with the qualities of a savior, will suddenly look pitiful, inept and weak. And the rage that has kindled a handful of shootings and hate crimes in the past few weeks will engulf vast segments of a disenfranchised and bewildered working and middle class. The people of this class will demand vengeance, radical change, order and moral renewal, which an array of proto-fascists, from the Christian right to the goons who disseminate hate talk on Fox News, will assure the country they will impose.

I called Hudson, who has an article in Monday’s Financial Times called “The Yekaterinburg Turning Point: De-Dollarization and the Ending of America’s Financial-Military Hegemony.” “Yekaterinburg,” Hudson writes, “may become known not only as the death place of the czars but of the American empire as well.” His article is worth reading, along with John Lanchester’s disturbing exposé of the world’s banking system, titled “It’s Finished,” which appeared in the May 28 issue of the London Review of Books.

“This means the end of the dollar,” Hudson told me. “It means China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran are forming an official financial and military area to get America out of Eurasia. The balance-of-payments deficit is mainly military in nature. Half of America’s discretionary spending is military. The deficit ends up in the hands of foreign banks, central banks. They don’t have any choice but to recycle the money to buy U.S. government debt. The Asian countries have been financing their own military encirclement. They have been forced to accept dollars that have no chance of being repaid. They are paying for America’s military aggression against them. They want to get rid of this.”

Challenging the American empire will be the focus of meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia, today and tomorrow for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other leaders of the six-nation Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. The alliance comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajiki-stan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia.

The attendees (who will be joined on Tuesday by Brazil for trade discussions) have assured American diplomats that dismantling the US financial and military hegemony is not their aim. They simply want to discuss mutual aid - but in a way that has no role for the US or for the dollar as a vehicle for trade among these countries.

The meeting is an opportunity for China, Russia and India to "build an increasingly multipolar world order", as Mr Medvedev put it in a St Petersburg speech this month. What he meant was this: we have reached our limit in subsidising the US military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth.

An "artificially maintained unipolar system", Mr Medvedev said, was based on "one big centre of consumption, financed by a growing deficit, and thus growing debts, one formerly strong reserve currency, and one dominant system of assessing assets and risks".

Keen observers of America, if not effective managers of their own economies, these countries argue that the root of the global financial crisis is that the US makes too little and spends too much. Especially upsetting is US military expenditure - such as military aid to Georgia or the presence in the oil-rich Middle East and central Asia - using money that foreign central banks recycle.

Overconsumption by US citizens, US buy-outs of foreign companies and dollars the Pentagon spends abroad all end up in foreign central banks. These governments face a hard choice: either recycle the dollars back to America by buying US Treasury bonds or let the "free market" force up their currencies relative to the dollar - thereby pricing their exports out of world markets, creating domestic unemployment and business failures. US-style free markets hook them into a system that forces them to accept unlimited dollars. Now they want out.

This means creating an alternative. Rather than making merely "cosmetic changes as some countries and perhaps the international financial organisations themselves might want", Mr Medvedev concluded his St Petersburg speech: "What we need are financial institutions of a completely new type, where particular political issues and motives, and particular countries, will not dominate."

For starters, the six countries intend to trade in their own currencies so as to get the benefit of mutual credit, rather than give it to the US. In recent months China has struck bilateral deals with Brazil and Malaysia to trade in renminbi rather than the dollar, sterling or euros.

Many foreigners see the US as a lawless nation. How else to characterise a country that holds out a set of laws for others - on war, debt repayment and the treatment of prisoners - but ignores them itself?

The US is the world's largest debtor, yet has avoided the pain of "structural adjustments" imposed on other debtor nations. US interest rate and tax reductions in the face of exploding trade and budget deficits are seen as the height of hypocrisy in view of the austerity programmes that the "Washington consensus" has forced on other countries via the International Monetary Fund and other vehicles. The US tells debtor economies to sell off their public utilities and natural resources, raise their interest rates and increase taxes while gutting their social safety nets to squeeze out money to pay creditors.

It is no mystery to other countries how the US remains above the law. Foreigners see a financial system backed by American aircraft carriers and military bases encircling the globe. The IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and other Washington surrogates are seen as vestiges of a lost American empire no longer able to rule by economic strength, left only with military domination.

The countries that are gathering today are convinced that this hegemony cannot continue without adequate revenues and are attempting to hasten the bankruptcy of the US financial-military world order. If China, Russia and their allies have their way, the US will no longer live off the savings of others, nor have the money for unlimited military spending.

US officials wanted to attend Yekaterinburg as observers. They were told no. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev illustrated his call for a supranational currency to replace the dollar by pulling from his pocket a sample coin of a “united future world currency.”

“Here it is,” Medvedev told reporters today in L’Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. “You can see it and touch it.”

The coin, which bears the words “unity in diversity,” was minted in Belgium and presented to the heads of G-8 delegations, Medvedev said.

The question of a supranational currency “concerns everyone now, even the mints,” Medvedev said. The test coin “means they’re getting ready. I think it’s a good sign that we understand how interdependent we are.”

Medvedev has repeatedly called for creating a mix of regional reserve currencies as part of the drive to address the global financial crisis, while questioning the U.S. dollar’s future as a global reserve currency. Russia’s proposals for the G-20 meeting in London in April included the creation of a supranational currency.

In a highly symbolic moment at the G8 summit in Italy today, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled to reporters a coin representing a “united future world currency”.

“We are discussing both the use of other national currencies, including the ruble, as a reserve currency, as well as supranational currencies,” the Russian leader said at a news conference.

However, those who have downplayed the formulation of a world currency by dismissing it as merely a progression of SDR’s (Special Drawing Rights) and not something that would physically be used by citizens in a system of world government, were contradicted when Medvedev clearly outlined that the new currency would be “used for payment” by citizens as a “united future world currency”.

“This is a symbol of our unity and our desire to settle such issues jointly,” Medvedev said.

After months of pushing for a new world currency, President Dmitry Medvedev had more than an idea to tout at his G8 news conference. He had the real thing.

With a broad grin, Medvedev held aloft a shiny gold coin Friday that he said represented a “symbol of unity” and a possible “future world currency.”

“I have some supranational currency in my pocket that I got as a souvenir. This is a test sample of a currency unit under the Unity in Diversity motto,” Medvedev said, holding the coin between two fingers.

“It is called the United Future World Currency. It can already be seen and touched,” he said, according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s web site.

Examples of the coin, worth $3,900 and produced by the United Future World Currency, a group backing the idea of a global currency, was presented to all world leaders attending the Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

The coin was made by Belgian Luc Luycx, who also designed one side of the Euro coins, and are called “eurodollars” in a symbolic call for a common currency to unite Europe and the United States.

Medvedev pulled out his coin when reporters asked him about new reserve currencies at the news conference that closed the three-day summit. “This is a symbol of our unity and our desire to solve such issues,” Medvedev said.

Russia and China have called for a “super currency” to replace the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the summit that the dollar’s supremacy as a reserve currency is outdated.

“This has become a regular theme now,” Medvedev said Friday. “We are discussing the creation or, to be more correct, the appearance of new reserve currencies, including the possibility of making the Russian ruble such a currency unit.”

Challenging the American empire will be the focus of meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia, today and tomorrow for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other leaders of the six-nation Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. The alliance comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajiki-stan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia.

The attendees (who will be joined on Tuesday by Brazil for trade discussions) have assured American diplomats that dismantling the US financial and military hegemony is not their aim. They simply want to discuss mutual aid - but in a way that has no role for the US or for the dollar as a vehicle for trade among these countries.

The meeting is an opportunity for China, Russia and India to "build an increasingly multipolar world order", as Mr Medvedev put it in a St Petersburg speech this month. What he meant was this: we have reached our limit in subsidising the US military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth.

An "artificially maintained unipolar system", Mr Medvedev said, was based on "one big centre of consumption, financed by a growing deficit, and thus growing debts, one formerly strong reserve currency, and one dominant system of assessing assets and risks".

Keen observers of America, if not effective managers of their own economies, these countries argue that the root of the global financial crisis is that the US makes too little and spends too much. Especially upsetting is US military expenditure - such as military aid to Georgia or the presence in the oil-rich Middle East and central Asia - using money that foreign central banks recycle.

Overconsumption by US citizens, US buy-outs of foreign companies and dollars the Pentagon spends abroad all end up in foreign central banks. These governments face a hard choice: either recycle the dollars back to America by buying US Treasury bonds or let the "free market" force up their currencies relative to the dollar - thereby pricing their exports out of world markets, creating domestic unemployment and business failures. US-style free markets hook them into a system that forces them to accept unlimited dollars. Now they want out.

This means creating an alternative. Rather than making merely "cosmetic changes as some countries and perhaps the international financial organisations themselves might want", Mr Medvedev concluded his St Petersburg speech: "What we need are financial institutions of a completely new type, where particular political issues and motives, and particular countries, will not dominate."

For starters, the six countries intend to trade in their own currencies so as to get the benefit of mutual credit, rather than give it to the US. In recent months China has struck bilateral deals with Brazil and Malaysia to trade in renminbi rather than the dollar, sterling or euros.

Many foreigners see the US as a lawless nation. How else to characterise a country that holds out a set of laws for others - on war, debt repayment and the treatment of prisoners - but ignores them itself?

The US is the world's largest debtor, yet has avoided the pain of "structural adjustments" imposed on other debtor nations. US interest rate and tax reductions in the face of exploding trade and budget deficits are seen as the height of hypocrisy in view of the austerity programmes that the "Washington consensus" has forced on other countries via the International Monetary Fund and other vehicles. The US tells debtor economies to sell off their public utilities and natural resources, raise their interest rates and increase taxes while gutting their social safety nets to squeeze out money to pay creditors.

It is no mystery to other countries how the US remains above the law. Foreigners see a financial system backed by American aircraft carriers and military bases encircling the globe. The IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and other Washington surrogates are seen as vestiges of a lost American empire no longer able to rule by economic strength, left only with military domination.

The countries that are gathering today are convinced that this hegemony cannot continue without adequate revenues and are attempting to hasten the bankruptcy of the US financial-military world order. If China, Russia and their allies have their way, the US will no longer live off the savings of others, nor have the money for unlimited military spending.

US officials wanted to attend Yekaterinburg as observers. They were told no. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.